(2020) Chico Mann - Double Life


Review:
Chico Mann was a member of Antibalas, so it’s fair to say that he knows his way around funk. In fact, when he moved from New York to Los Angeles, his goal was to start an Afro-rock band called Here Lies Man. “What you’re hearing on this record is music I wrote for that band, but has been reimagined to bring it back to its original form.” This record is Mann’s new instrumental one Double Life. Not surprisingly, the album goes heavy on the funk but there is much more to it than that. It also includes some psychedelic and blues aspects for a sound that is hard to describe but easy to enjoy. The songs are driven by some distorted guitars and rhythms that will make you move. Underneath the funk-rock sound of these melodies is a spacey sound provided by the organ. It’s spacey in the way Bootsy Collins is – with a great deal of funk. The other thing that stands out about this album is that it has something of a cinematic feel to it. “Hell” is one good example of that. From the opening bars of this one, you get the sense that it could be part of a soundtrack. The cool thing is that It could be in a gangster movie, a blaxploitation movie, something like Swingers, or even as the background for a slow-motion fight scene. It’s a bit of a challenge in describing this album because it’s instrumental. There is some similarity to bands like Lettuce and Galactic, but the guitars on this album are a little more raucous. At its heart, it is a funk album made to get people moving. However, there is a fair amount of rock both in the guitar and the organ that provides a 60s garage feel at times. Perhaps the best way to describe this album is to say that if there were such a thing as a party spaceship, this would be an excellent choice for the playlist for the trip. No matter how you choose to describe this album, it’s fair to say that you won’t hear many quite like it. It’s an extravaganza of funk, soul, rock, and psychedelia, all blended together seamlessly. Not only that, but on the right sound system, you would feel like you are being surrounded by the sound. And that’s not a bad thing.





Tracklist:
01 - Letting Go
02 - Fighting
03 - Summon Fire
04 - When I Come To
05 - Hell
06 - Come Inside
07 - Taking the Blame
08 - Sorrow Tears & Blood
09 - That Much Closer to Nothing
10 - Here Lies Man
11 - Blindness
12 - You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
13 - So Far Away
14 - Belt of the Sun


Media Report:
Genre: funk, psychedelic rock, world
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits